2G verdict tight slap on government: Bal Thackeray

Mumbai: The Supreme Court verdict cancelling 122 telecom licences issued in 2008 is a "tight slap" on the government's face, an editorial by Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray in party mouthpiece Saamna said on Friday.

Titled "Government Unmasked", the strongly worded editorial said: "The Supreme Court's verdict on the 2G spectrum scam is a tight slap on government's face", adding that after this, the government has no moral right to stay in power.

"However, expecting ethics and morality from Congress is like expecting an essay on light from a blind person," Thackeray said in the editorial.

Thackeray said that the court verdict cancelling all the 122 telecom licences issued during the tenure of then telecom minister A. Raja is historic in its own way.

He also emphasised that in such a big scam, Raja alone cannot be held responsible. "The Prime Minister's Office and the finance ministry cannot wash their hands off the responsibility, they too are equally accountable for the scam," the editorial said.

The editorial said Home Minister P. Chidambaram, who was the finance minister at the time of the 2G spectrum allocation, "might have got a breather for two days. But the government has to understand that (he) will not be able to saved on the short period of the breather".

Listing several scams including the age row of the army chief, the ISRO scientists' controversy and the Adarsh Housing Society scam, Thackeray said that the Supreme Court verdict on the 2G scam is the final nail in the government's coffin.

"It is possible that the government will stay on in power for some more time, but the people's faith in Manmohan Singh is lost. The latest Supreme Court verdict is an apt example of the lost faith," he said.